A cold day in the Odenwald

Our cycle club in the form of the section where we were formerly members: Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrradclub Kreis Bergstraße organises excellent walks every winter. Today we met in Bensheim and went by car up to Neunkirchen, a hamlet in the Odenwald. We set up carpools to cut down the environmental impact. In Neunkirchen we walked through knee deep snow over the Germannshöhe via Freiheit (Freedom) to the hamlet of Winterkasten. We ate well in the Raupenstein Guesthouse and then set off along the local road to climb through sticky rather unpleasant snow over Raupenstein Hill. We followed the border between Heppenheim and Bensheim through a the forest on an unmarked way. Fortunately the snow was deep enough that we could follow the tracks of others. From Schleichenhöhe we followed the red square route to the foot of the Kaiserturm, before turning off left to skirt the Neunkirchener Höhe and reach Neunkirchen once more. We had the obligatory Kaffee und Kuchen in the Höhenhaus restaurant, before returning to Bensheim. A four hour 14 km walk with about 400 m climbing and several million calories. An excellent day.